by Bryan Fields
She said, “Hi, I’m Ember, and I’m going to be doing some fire dancing for you. What you’re going to see may alarm you, but I assure you, it’s all part of the show. Harmony, please raise your hand. This lady knows what’s going on, and she will intervene if needed. Please, nobody do anything unless she does something first, otherwise you could get seriously hurt. Harmony is my safety crew. Everyone else, please, just relax. Thank you.”
Ember lit the wicking on the ends of her chains and nodded to Charles. He started a heartbeat rhythm to get her going. Vicki joined in, singing a languorous Gaelic ballad. Her voice was amazing; on top of everything else, she was a trained opera soprano.
Ember wove the flames around her, spinning them faster and closer to her body than I had ever seen other fire dancers get. She ran the flames down her sides, crossing them over her feet. As she did, flames raced up her legs and engulfed her torso. She kept dancing, raising her arms and spinning like a dervish as the flames surrounded her. The flames weren’t confined to her body, like a stuntman doing a body burn; instead, she seemed to be dancing inside a giant candle flame.
The song ended. Ember dropped to the ground and thrust her hand towards the sky. The flames raced up her arm and shot into the air. The fireball soared up and detonated, sending a ring of shooting stars cascading down around us.
The applause was immediate and thunderous. The dancers surrounded Ember, asking for details and explanations. She shook her head and told the dancers that the technique was still being developed and wasn’t ready to be taught yet. I was starting to doubt she’d be able to get away with saying that, when Rose came to her rescue.
Far out in the middle of the lake, Mommy Dragon stuck her head out of the water and launched a fireball of her own into the air. She followed it with a short, churlish snort and disappeared back under the water.
In the silence that followed, one of the Occupy kids clapped his hands once. “All right, boys and girls! Mommy Dragon says it’s bed time! Anyone know a good lullaby?”
Vicki said, “I do. Last song of the night, all!” She waved for everyone to settle down, and, once she had quiet, began a lament for fallen friends. The harp notes, her voice—both were as clear and delicate as silver glass. I wiped my eyes, and when I looked again, for the space of a single heartbeat, I saw a Unicorn in the center of the circle.
It was smoke, and starlight, and the glow of moonlight-drenched clouds. Its horn was a nebula of gas and white fire, and its eyes were endless night. Black holes. Look into them too long, and be lost forever. It took one step, grazing its horn across a young woman’s forehead. Then it was gone.
I looked around. Nobody else seemed to have noticed, except the young woman. When the song ended, she pulled off the fuzzy knit cap she was wearing, revealing smooth, hairless skin, missing even eyebrows. She touched her chest, smiled, and fainted. Her friends surrounded her and helped her back to her tent. A few of them came back and reassured everyone the young lady was fine; she had merely gotten dizzy.
We said our good nights and headed back to our house. I didn’t know it yet, but that young lady had just tossed a rock into the pond of our lives. It would be a while before we felt the ripples from that particular stone, but the waves were coming.
Chapter Eight
And It Was All Going So Well…
Oh-Shit-Thirty in the morning arrived well before I was ready, but coffee and breakfast burritos got me moving. When Rose was ready to transform, I met her out on the upper deck with a stepladder. I climbed up on the roof and helped her up after me. There were no cars coming and the folks camping in the park seemed to all be asleep, so she dropped her robe and stood up. Her transformation to Azul took only a second. She spread her wings and leaped.
Hatchlings can’t fly, but they have a terrific glide ratio. Azul soared into the branches of a large cottonwood, scrambled up the trunk as high as she could go, and jumped again. She came down twenty yards offshore and disappeared under the water.
When she emerged from the lake, Azul wandered around and poked her snout into the bear trap. It took her under a minute to open the far end and gulp down the fish. She nosed through the Occupy camp a bit before galumphing off to have a look at Mavis’ new roses. I spotted a car coming and thought a warning toward Rose as hard as I could. She hunkered down as it went past. A hand emerged from the window and threw a newspaper onto the driveway.
The sky was getting lighter, so I came down from the roof. I grabbed my keys and cell phone and was heading out the door when I heard a horn honk. I got an immediate flash of terror and alarm from Rose, and then nothing. I could still feel her body; she was alive, but unconscious. I grabbed a can of pepper spray I keep by the front door and ran out to see what was happening.
Azul—Rose, damn it!—was on her side next to a decorative purple sage in the Brundles’ front yard. A woman in a business outfit was standing over her holding a mug of coffee and a cell phone. She wasn’t calling anyone; she was taking pictures. I shoved her to the side and knelt next to Rose.
It looked as though she had heard the car coming and tried to hide behind the sage. Someone had anticipated this, and had set a snare for her. She had a wire noose around her throat, digging in too deep and too tight for me to get my fingers under. The wire ran through an eyebolt driven into the ground and got lost in the other bushes along the driveway. I yelled at the woman to call the police while I looked around for something to cut the wire with.
A door slammed and I turned around in time to see Wilbur Brundle in his bath robe, loading rounds into a pump-action 12-gauge. I stepped between him and Rose, balling my hands into fists. He chambered a round and brought the shotgun to his shoulder. A heavy, familiar weight settled into my hands—the Dwarven two-handed sword Rose gave me. All of a sudden, the question ‘What would a sword-swinging barbarian do?’ was no longer quite so academic.
Without thinking about it, I leaped, bringing the sword up over my head and down with both hands. He tried to block with the shotgun and I cut it in half, right though the action. Yeah, I know that myth was busted, but those folks weren’t using a magic sword.
I switched my grip to the ricasso and sucker-punched him in the stomach with the pommel. He dropped to his knees. I finished up with a roundhouse kick to his head. He hit the ground and stayed there, moaning.
Fine. I know kung-fu. I didn’t waste time wondering about it. I knelt and started searching the ground for the wire. I was still looking when Miranda and Jake ran up. I hadn’t realized it, but they’d camped out as well. I yelled at Miranda to deal with the cops I could hear coming and asked Jake to help me find the wire.
The sirens of the arriving police cars caused heads to poke out of tents and lights to go on in bedrooms up and down the street. Wilbur tried to get back to his feet while yelling that I was trespassing, Miranda and Jake were holding their badges up for the arriving cops to see, I was yelling for the Jake to help me, the kids from the park were yelling at Wilbur to leave Rose alone, and in the middle of all that I found the wire. I propped my cell phone on its edge, holding the wire up so I could see it, and brought the sword down with everything I had. The wire split with a resounding twang and a crash of counterweights from inside the garage.
I dropped the sword and tried to loosen the wire from Rose’s throat. It was still too tight for me to get my fingers under it and I couldn’t find the release. I leaned over the end of her snout and could feel breath moving. It was shallow, but she was breathing.
One of the cops grabbed my shoulder. “Sir, you have to step back. This isn’t your property, and the owner wants you to leave.”
I looked at him and said, “I’ll move. Just give me a hand getting her out of here.”
Wilbur said, “Not a chance. That thing is on my property and I’m going to kill it. I want that thing’s skin in front of my fireplace.”
I was up and had the sword at the ready before I knew what I was doing. “Touch a weapon, old man, and I’ll have your head off be
fore you have time to piss yourself.”
Jake started to edge closer to me. “David, think about what you’re doing. This isn’t self-defense. You’re threatening someone, on his property. Lower the sword, David.”
More police cars arrived, and I heard Mixon calling the other cops back. He had a word with Miranda before starting up the driveway. I gave him a glance and a nod as he approached. Behind him I could see the neighborhood residents and the Dragon groupies gathering. I spotted Mary in bathrobe and bunny slippers, talking on her cell phone. Ember and Harmony were hovering at the front of the crowd. Harmony looked like a thundercloud waiting to unload on someone. Somewhere in the background, I heard an approaching helicopter. Hopefully it was a news crew and not the Men in Black.
Mixon stopped a few feet from me. “David, you don’t want anyone getting hurt here. Put the sword down and let us work things out. I know you play online games, so I’m sure you know what an aggro reset is. I’m offering you one. I suggest you take it.” Jake stepped back to let Mixon run the scene, but he was nodding at me.
I looked at Wilbur, then back at Mixon. “Cuff us both and get that snare off her neck. Give me your word you’ll do that and I surrender.” As I spoke, I felt Rose’s mind awake.
Mixon nodded and waved at one of the other cops to tend to Wilbur. I sheathed the sword in the ground and knelt, putting my hands on top of my head.
A tremor ran through Rose’s hatchling body. I felt her armor up and breathed a sigh of relief. Now she was all but bulletproof, and with Wilbur contained, I could relax a bit. Mixon cuffed me and walked me over to the rear of his cruiser, where my sword got a nice, new evidence tag. I looked over my shoulder and was overjoyed to see Rose’s wings and tail twitching.
Another car pulled up and Martin jumped out. He ran past the cops and threw his arms around Rose/Azul’s neck. I have no idea what he did, but I heard a ‘zzziiip’ noise and he pulled the snare off of her. He hugged her again and Rose managed to wrap her tail and one wing around him. The helicopter turned out to be Sky 9 again; I hoped they were getting plenty of footage.
More police cars and animal control showed up. The poor woman from animal control looked at Rose and then at her catch-pole. “Gonna’ need a bigger boat,” she muttered. She went back to her truck and came out with a rifle and a box of tranquilizer darts.
Rose waved a foreclaw at her. “Good morning, officer. Please don’t shoot me.” She wasn’t trying to be cute this time; the pain in her voice was palpable. The woman from animal control dropped her rifle on the hood of a cruiser and backed up. She went over to a guy wearing lieutenant’s stripes and talked to him for a moment.
I called out, “Lieutenant! May I get a word here? I can tell you what’s going on.”
He brought the animal control officer over with him. I got a look at her name badge: Anderson. The lieutenant crossed his arms. “You have one minute, mister…?”
“David Fraser. The creature on the ground is a real, live baby Dragon. It’s not a puppet or an animatronic.”
The lieutenant raised his eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because it looks to me like someone put some rubber wings on a crocodile and painted it blue as a joke. I don’t have time for jokes. You take my meaning, David?”
I sighed. “I don’t know where it came from either, but this is an intelligent creature. It is capable of speech, and it has a mother. I guarantee, you do not want to make mommy angry. Get the hatchling back to the lake and let her go.”
Ms. Anderson said, “He may have a point. This thing is not a crocodile. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not any animal I’ve ever seen or heard of before. It talked to me. I think we should take it back to the lake.”
It was a good plan. It might have worked. But we’ll never know. The purple sage bush next to Rose was in bloom. Rose inhaled a bit too much pollen and sneezed. One of the SWAT officers, believing Rose was about to bite Martin, fired two rounds at Rose’s head. Both rounds ricocheted off her scales, striking Martin in the chest. The lieutenant shouted for everyone to hold their fire, but the damage had been done.
Chapter Nine
Draco Ex Machina
Vicki screamed and ran past the cops, kneeling on the ground next to Martin. Rose looked at me, and I felt a rush of energy building up inside her. She exhaled a massive cloud of acrid, sulfurous-yellow smoke. It filled the area, concealing the entire driveway and everyone on it. I couldn’t see anything, but I felt it as she vanished, taking Martin and Vicki with her.
The cloud kept expanding, burning the eyes as though someone had dumped a truckload of chopped onions on the driveway. The police were shouting about tear gas and several ran to get gas masks out of their cruisers. So did the Occupy kids; after two or three park evictions, I guess you learn to plan ahead.
The smoke started to disperse and everyone noticed that the driveway was empty. The lieutenant grabbed my shoulder and pushed me against the back door of the cruiser. “All right, smartass, where the Hell did they go? You some kind of street magician-wannabe, asshole?”
I stared back at him. “Those are news helicopters overhead. Is this how you want to earn your fifteen minutes of fame?”
He let go, but I could tell he was about half a tic from issuing me a contempt-of-cop citation, possibly using his flashlight. He shook his head and stepped away from me. “I’ve been keeping up on your argument with your HOA, David, and every instinct I have tells me you know more about this baby dragon crap than you’re letting on. If there’s anything you do know, I suggest you spill it now.”
“Hate to disappoint you, but all I know is that I saw the hatchling a couple days ago at the lake. I saw something in the water last night that could have been the thing’s mother. I don’t know where it went. I was over here, in handcuffs, when the baby vanished. That’s all I know.”
Mixon started to say something, but a gust of wind slammed into us, nearly knocking me over. A thundercloud was forming in the park across the street, and it was huge. Intense gusts of wind lashed out, pelting everyone with leaves and small bits of debris. Being handcuffed, all I could do was look away, trying to keep the dust out of my eyes. As the wind died down, I heard a slow, measured drumbeat filling the air. I looked up, in time to see something move inside the storm clouds. Trumpets sounded and the storm clouds dispersed, revealing a Dragon the size of a DC-10. Her hide was pearl white, with ivory horns and scales sparkling like fire opals in the morning sun. Her wings were covered with translucent prisms, creating an ever-shifting pattern of scintillating rainbows as her sails bent and flexed. She seemed to glow from within, and the reflected sunlight surrounded her in a golden halo. The music was coming from her.
Every cop in the area had a firearm trained on her. She spoke a single word in Draconic, and the cops all lowered their weapons. They ejected their magazines and cleared the rounds they had chambered before dropping the useless guns on the ground. About half of them followed that by getting down on their knees. So were people all over the park; she might look like a Dragon, but the majority of the people in the park were convinced she was an angel.
The Dragoness moved her front legs to the side, and Vicki emerged carrying Martin. Charles was able to stand up and run to them. Martin turned and reached out for his father—he was alive and totally uninjured. Charles pulled him into a bear hug and fell to his knees, sobbing. Their reunion made the evening news across the country that night.
I felt Rose return, but she wasn’t on the driveway; it was coming from our house. She came out the front door and ran over to me. Somewhere along the line she’d picked up a fluffy pink bathrobe. At least she wasn’t the only person wearing one. She threw her arms around me, and I felt her summoning energy for a spell.
While she was building up her power, the Dragoness pointed to the SWAT officer who had accidently shot Martin and gestured for the woman to approach. She was scared to death and couldn’t stop crying, but she squared her shoulders and walked out into the middle of the street, shaking all t
he way.
The Dragoness touched her on the shoulder with the tip of one talon. “You are forgiven,” she said. Her voice was rich and slow as molasses, with reverberations I felt in my chest. “You meant no harm. Be at peace.”
Charles opened his arms, and the officer knelt as well, hugging Martin and apologizing through her tears. Vicki joined in, and I noticed something different: neither she nor Martin was wearing glasses anymore.
Rose threw the power she’d accumulated into her spell, and Mommy Dragon emerged from the depths of the lake, soaring into the sky. She circled the area once before landing in front of the opalescent Dragoness. Mommy Dragon bowed and took her place next to the larger Dragoness.
The Dragoness held up one claw in benediction. “Fly free, always,” she intoned. Clouds billowed out around her, and when they dissipated she was gone. All that remained were her claw prints which were sunk a foot and a half into the ground. I was suddenly very glad it wouldn’t be my job to mix up all that plaster of Paris.
I leaned over and asked Rose, “What happened?”
Rose leaned against me, putting her head on my shoulder. “That was my mother. She’s an expert with creation magics. She fixed them, and gave them a little tour before she brought them back. I didn’t change form until they came through, so they don’t know it was me.”
“Creation magic?”
Rose nodded. “The primal, fundamental, creative energy of the universe. She didn’t just heal them; she made them again, whole and complete. She healed Martin’s asthma and nearsightedness along with his wounds.”
I looked at Charles and Vicki hugging Martin. “Nothing like having a miracle in your pocket.”
“You heard Vicki screaming.” Rose pressed her head into my chest. “How could Mother—any mother—hear that and not act?”
“Trust me, I’m not complaining.”